8 Food Lion Deli and Bakery Buys South Carolina Shoppers Grab Every Week

Food Lion opened two brand-new South Carolina stores this year, on Two Notch Road in Elgin and on West Georgia Road in Simpsonville.

Both of them came with a self-service wing and hot favorites bar.

These are the Food Lion deli and bakery buys shoppers load into their carts week after week.

Note: Prices are approximate and may vary by store.

1. Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Fried chicken comes out of the Food Lion deli by the count, not by the piece you point at.

The quarter buttermilk fried chicken comes 4 to a package at 24 ounces, and the assorted buttermilk pieces come in a 14-ounce 4-count or a 28-ounce 8-count.

But here’s the part almost nobody checks: Food Lion posts an hour range for when each package is hot, and those ranges don’t match each other.

The 4-count of assorted pieces shows 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Food Lion doesn’t put the 8-count out hot until 4 p.m. at many stores.

Read the label.

Roll up at noon wanting eight pieces, and you’re carrying a cold package to the car.

The Nashville hot chicken tenders split the same way, with a 3-count in the middle of the day and a 5-count in the evening.

2. Wings by the Container

Eighteen wings come in a single container at the Food Lion deli counter.

Mild and spicy wings both sell in that 18-count, hot from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Plain, barbecue, and buffalo bone-in wings sell by weight instead, in packages that run about a pound, and those don’t go hot until noon.

So Food Lion puts the mild wings out a full hour before the barbecue wings.

Shoppers clear that case on fall Saturdays at many stores, so anyone planning around a kickoff in Columbia or Clemson gets there before the lunch crowd.

3. Rotisserie Chicken in Two Sizes

The rotisserie chicken at Food Lion comes in two sizes, and shoppers reach for the smaller package on autopilot.

The traditional package weighs 28 ounces.

The family size weighs 40 ounces, which works out to three-quarters of a pound more chicken on the same trip.

Both hold in the hot case from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., so if you stop at 7:30 on the way home from a shift in Goose Creek, the chicken you carry out has already cooled.

Buy it cold on purpose.

A chilled rotisserie chicken pulls off the bone in clean strips, which is what you want when it’s headed into a chicken bog or a casserole instead of onto a plate.

4. Sliced-to-Order Deli Meat

The person working the slicer at a Food Lion deli will cut your order to any thickness you name, and almost nobody asks.

Order online and you get regular sliced, the setting the system picks when you don’t name your own.

It costs you nothing.

Shaved turkey folds into a sandwich the way a thick cut never will, and thick-cut ham holds its shape in a skillet the way shaved meat never could.

Food Lion’s own premium hams cover the everyday end, in off the bone, Virginia brand, black forest, and honey.

Taste of Inspirations goes richer, with a choice black Angus roast beef and a cracked black pepper turkey breast, and Fiorucci handles the Italian side with Genoa salami and an extra-large sandwich pepperoni.

5. Chicken Salad by the Tub

Chicken salad in a Food Lion deli case comes from more kitchens than many shoppers realize.

You’ll count eight.

Taste of Inspirations runs a chicken salad and a harvest version beside it, Star’s puts out a deli chicken salad and an all-white Private Stock version, and Roberts Deli sells a famous recipe and a light recipe.

Ruth’s fills an 11-ounce tub, and the rest of the tubs land between 10 ounces and 14 ounces.

Not a single tub in that lineup carries a Food Lion label.

Food Lion’s own chicken salad recipe does exist, but you have to order the catering platter to get it, stacked on Hawaiian rolls.

The same case carries egg salad, tuna salad, and a seafood salad in 12-ounce tubs, so a church lunch in Summerville comes together without anybody turning on a stove.

6. Mustard Potato Salad and Cole Slaw

There are two potato salads in that Food Lion cooler, and the yellow tub belongs on a Midlands plate.

The mustard version sits right beside the American style, which is the mayonnaise-forward tub everybody pictures.

Around Orangeburg and Columbia, the barbecue sauce is mustard too.

Both tubs come in 16 ounces and 32 ounces, and shoppers grab the small tub out of habit.

The 32-ounce tub exists.

Cole slaw runs 15 ounces and 30 ounces, and macaroni salad matches the potato salad at 16 and 32.

A smokehouse barbecue baked bean side and a homestyle mashed potato sit in that cooler too, which covers the rest of the plate without a pot on the stove.

7. Bread Baked in the Store

Half a loaf of sourdough is a product you can buy at Food Lion, not a leftover from yesterday.

The bakery slices that sourdough half loaf at 7 ounces, and an asiago cheese half loaf comes in at 6.

Nobody wastes the back half.

It solves the standing problem in a two-person house, where a full loaf goes stale before anybody finishes it.

Full loaves are still there for a crowd, in unsliced French and Italian bread, plus a twin pack that puts two French loaves in one bag.

Garlic bread sells both ways, unsliced or cut 5 to a package, so nobody has to hunt for the bread knife.

And corn bread comes off the bakery rack in a full loaf and a 2-count of mini loaves, which is worth knowing on a night when butterbeans are already on the stove.

8. Cakes, Brownies, and Donuts

Cookies come 16 to a package at Food Lion, which is the count most shoppers picture.

Then there’s a 40-count package on the same rack, for the weeks that need forty cookies.

We’ve all been there.

The bakery also sells chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies by the tub, made without an oven at all.

Brownies come 8 to a package, iced with fudge, cream cheese, or turtle.

Creme cakes come as 24-ounce loaves in chocolate, lemon, strawberry, and vanilla, and the layer cakes start at a 5-inch round.

Donuts fill out the morning side, with a 12-count of homestyle glazed, a 6-count of plain cake donuts, apple fritters, cinnamon buns, and mini eclairs.

A dozen glazed donuts and a box of those no-bake cookies cover a church breakfast in Hartsville without anybody baking anything.

What a Party Tray Costs

Food Lion publishes prices for its catering trays, so feeding a crowd out of the deli and bakery doesn't have to be a guess.

A 48-piece box of assorted fried chicken runs $60 on that menu, and 50 drumsticks and thighs come in at $55.

Thirty-two bone-in wings are $45, served with ranch or blue cheese.

The mini chicken salad sandwich platter does the most work, at $60 for 48 sandwiches on Hawaiian rolls.

That's $1.25 a sandwich.

A meat and cheese platter for 26 to 30 people costs $50, the same as the signature sandwiches platter on Kaiser rolls.

On the bakery side, 18 gourmet cookies come to $25, two dozen fresh-baked bagels with cream cheese to $30, and a sliced creme cake tray to $25.

Store prices and availability shift, so confirm the number with your deli when you place the order.